Chapter One: Swedish People

Chapter One

Swedish People

England, London - 7:13 AM, Day 1
“Slow down, Lia! You just hit a man! We have to go back and see if he’s alright!”
“Oh, shut up, Argo, you wimp! Do you want me to bloody slow down while we’re being chased by those guys"“ Lia jerked her thumb back in the direction of the oncoming horde of Monitors “" just because some idiotic bloke didn’t have the sense to jump out of the way when I turned the corner?”
“That wasn’t just some idiotic bloke! That was the Swedish representative from the World Council!”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Lia rolled her eyes. “Quit whining about it, Argo. We just stole the most sacred treasure known to the human race and you’re whining about a blinking council member?”
“I would just rather not have the whole of Sweden out to kill us,” Argo said in a small voice.
“Oh, would you now? Well, Argo, I can guarantee that the a******s would be out to kill us either way. So give me a little less cheek and a bit more hacking.”
“You don’t even care that we’re going to die, do you?” whined Argo.
“You keep that up, and you won’t even have to wait for those guys to catch up to us.”
“I’m just saying, is all.”
“Then I would suggest you stop saying, and start doing, before you find that fancy little computer halfway up your arse.” Argo, having no particular desire to find an electrical appliance jammed up his buttocks, shut up.
“And for the record, I hate Swedes anyway.” Okay, time out.

First off, I, the author, have nothing against Swedes. Lia just happened to. Don’t expect me to take responsibility for anything that anyone says in this book.
Now that we have that cleared up, let’s move on to the explanation. First off, who am I?

…What, you thought I’d tell you? No way. Just settle for “the author”. Or know me as my screen name. Whatever. I just don’t want troublesome stalkers. I’ve had enough of those. You know who you are. No hard feelings or anything, but…you know what, never mind. 

In any case, I’ll move on to more important things. The two Briti -- Britese --Britanese -- Britanite -- Bri -- never mind. The thing is, the two “British” characters aren’t really British. They’re kind of…hybrids, if you will. Not like a mix of two different races, but a mix of two different species. I was trying to be innovative and come up with a name for them, but…I guess one could call them “Brites” since they’re British Sprites.

Now, in this case, I would like to ask you to please throw away whatever definition you have of a sprite. Unless your definition happens to be “a demonic, oversized winged human-Monitor hybrid with a tendency to set people on fire”. Of course, they have human forms as well, but in the end, they are rather disagreeable creatures. If you have ever gone to a drinking party with a Sprite, you will find that sitting across the table from them is not a great idea, as flame tends to escape from their mouths whenever they burp. So you may lose an eyebrow or two if you do decide to sit across from them, or possibly a bit more.

It may help your image of these creatures if you know what a Monitor is. You see, the “sacred treasure” that Lia was referring to is an immortality elixir. The rumor was that a single drop can make you live forever. A load of nonsense, if you ask me. The World Council decided that this “elixir” should be divided up and sent to twenty different countries, drawn by lottery. Being that humans find it very hard to resist the pull of immortality, it was a given that a human was not fit to guard the elixir. Rather conveniently, at the time that this elixir was discovered, a new species of Sprites had recently evolved. These creatures, docile but powerful, were selected to guard the elixirs stored in the chosen countries. They were named Monitors. Monitors, being photosynthetic, had no particular desire for material things in life, so they cared little about the concept of immortality. However, Monitors are rarely bothered by anything, and are lazy at heart. Humans recognized this quickly, and searched desperately for a solution. They discovered that the Monitors became extremely devoted once given something to be devoted to. And so the Monitors became the guards of the elixir. 

 I'm sick of elaborating things for you, so here's more of Lia and Argo.


Argo’s fingers were sore from typing. He was wondering why the boss had to be so compassionate, why he was doing this when he could just kill all the damn humans and be done with it. No sweat.
Although, he reasoned, the boss was a human after all. It did make sense that he would rather not kill other humans. But still, it would be so much easier.
He sighed, and decided not to think so much about it. He hit enter as Lia turned the corner, nearly throwing him off the motorcycle. The city gates, now straight down the highway, opened up for them.
“You’ve got a thirty-second window,” he told Lia, “then the gates will start to close.”
“Thirty seconds? Is that the best you can do?”
“I’m hoping that we can lock them in once we get through.”
“They’re Monitors, Argo. They’ll bust straight through.”
“Well, it’s worth a shot, no?”
Lia sighed. “I suppose so."